Produced and compiled by academics, "The
Bible According to Einstein" is a down-to-earth yet thought-provoking
tome that ingeniously relates modern scientific truths and theorems
as they interact with mainstream religious philosophies.
Surprisingly, there is more agreement
than conflict between science and religion. And there is an abundance
of comparisons to make even religious zealots comfortable.
In fact, the book may do for popular science
what the Bible has done for Judeo-Christian religions. This "bible"
is even organized like the Holy Bible, with old and new testaments
comparing chapters and psalms with modern science. The new book
contains, for instance, the books of Darwin, Psalms, Prophets and others.
Yet, this book which was scheduled for
release on Sept. 30, is neither written by nor in any way
representative of the work of the late Albert Einstein, who died
in 1955 at the age of 76. But is does intersperse his brilliant
scientific achievements, as well as those of other scientists, with
popular religious beliefs.
It also quotes Einstein: "Science without
religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
So the book gives readers a truly dazzling
juxtaposition of history, nature, laws and philosophy in an expository
style of narrative that is sometimes poetic, often metaphorical and
typically biblical.
The old testament of this new bible narrates
the story of genesis and the evolution of the universe. It begins with
scientific and religious versions of how the Earth came to
be -- science's Big Bang and the Earth's seven-day creation attributed
to God.
In the Bible: "In the beginning, the
World was without form and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep . . . "
In "The Bible According to Einstein": "In
the 'Beginning,' there was no
beginning . . . there was no
time and there was no space. The Universe was in a
quantum state with wild
fluctuations . . . "
The book goes on to discuss the emergence of
human beings -- religion's Adam and Eve and science's evolutionary
process from which apes became man.
Chock-full of profundity, one chapter cites
the speed of light: "Thou shall never be a witness of the present, for
the speed of light is finite. What the eye sees is in the past."
To emphasize that: "And in 1960, it came to
pass that, in a laboratory, two scientists measured the wavelength of
some laser light . . . (and it) did
agree with calculations from the Einstein theory. And a prophesy
of a prophet was confirmed."
That said, Chapter VI describes the discovery
of a supernova, although the explosion in space just witnessed in 1987
had actually occurred 160,000 years earlier.
Throughout, the book extols Einstein as a
prophet of science.

"In the Beginning, there
was no beginning . . . there
was no time and there was
no space." -- The Bible
According to Einstein

"And on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany,
Albert Einstein, the scientific version of a prophet and a saint, was
born." Later: "Hence, in the span of just eleven years, much of
the 'old testament' of physics was rewritten. Thus, Albert
Einstein rewrote the gospel of Sir Isaac
Newton . . . "
Following the scientific psalms, the
book offers up "The Ten Commandments of Science," citing
nature, gravity, geometry, space, electromagnetism, electricity, nuclear
physics, quantum mechanics and a plethora of scientific notions.
In "The Final Word," the book offers: "So know
the Universe as it be now. And know that it be vast and
black. And know that it be full of countless
galaxies but that most of it be
void . . . "
"The Bible According to Einstein" is, then, a
mainstream work aimed at spreading the word of science much as the
word of God was spread by the Bible.
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